Glass or Acrylic for Picture Framing, Which Is Better?Posted by Kirk Bigum on February 12th, 2021 Let's get this taken care of to start with. over at this website is a brand name. Like Kleenex or Band-Aids it's substituted for the specific product. Kleenex is a label of tissue, Band-Aids can be a make of sheer strips, and Plexiglass is often a make of acrylic. When check this link right here now of the people consider acrylic, the first thing that one thinks of is durability. Compared to glass, acrylic is virtually unbreakable. When a framed piece will probably be moved around a good deal, acrylic seems the obvious choice, and when the product will be shipped, it seems like a necessity. It provides a surprise to master if UPS or FedEx break the glass in a very framed piece and ruin the artwork, they could not reimburse the market industry valuation on the artwork. Instead, they might offer to reimburse just the value of those things accustomed to make the work; ie, the paint, the paper along with the glass, a substantial loss of potential value. Acrylic will avoid this disaster. Yet, having said that, a single respect acrylic is a lot more fragile than glass; it really is easily scratched. Even just rubbing a crumpled up paper towel over the surface of acrylic may cause light surface abrasions. For this reason, a soft cloth is advised when cleaning it, the cotton rag or a specially constituted paper towel just like a Scott Wyp-All, which includes the texture and feel of cotton. In addition, plastic cleaner must be employed to clean acrylic, never glass cleaner. All of which causes it to be extra involved to wash than glass. But there exists some good news with regards to cleaning acrylic. Acrylic is typically sold clean. It comes which has a protective plastic or paper mask over it, then when the mask is peeled away, the acrylic can be as clean as it's ever going to be. Glass, however, is normally dirty when purchased. It usually includes a coat of dust on it which requires repeated and rigorous cleaning to get rid of. All that cleaning has other implications as well. Unbeknownst to the majority of framers, wiping a dry paper towel repeatedly through the surface of glass builds static charge. Static charge could be the culprit that causes dust and lint to cling to the inside of your glass. If you've ever had the experience of inspecting a glazed and framed piece prior to putting it in to a frame, finding it suitably clear of dust and lint, and after that loading and securing it in to the frame to discover, upon turning it over, that we now have dust particles clinging on the within the glass, static charge is the problem. To eliminate it, either avoid wiping the glass to dry - let it rest moist and let it dry all of those other way on its own - or, also, invest in an anti-static brush. Brush the glass once with all the anti-static brush to eliminate the static charge before loading the glass in to the frame. Acrylic is more serious than glass when it comes to static charge. In fact, static charge will be the single biggest downside of acrylic. Fortunately, however, the catch is easily solved by using an anti-static brush immediately after detaching the protective mask. This removes the static charge without requiring the acrylic being cleaned with an anti-static plastic cleaner, an operation that seems unnecessary given the fact that the acrylic is already clean whenever you buy it. Now that we've addressed the only biggest issue with acrylic, we ought to address its single biggest benefit. Compared to glass acrylic is remarkably lightweight. With larger pieces, say 24"x36" and larger, glass can be dangerously heavy, resulting in the frame to bow beneath the weight. Not only that, but glass may be dangerous to deal with in those larger sizes, threatening to flex and snap. Acrylic is preferred when framing larger sizes. But the troublesome fragility of glass makes no less than one edge on acrylic. Glass is relatively all to easy to cut. Reducing glass to size is rather simple of scoring it with a Logan glass cutter and snapping it cleanly at the score. Picture framing grade acrylic, conversely, is close for the 1/8" thick. At that thickness it's indistinguishable from glass inside a frame, but its thickness causes it to be a struggle to get and snap. link can be obtained which can be scored and snapped, but they're undesirable for picture framing because they look plasticky in the frame. The easiest way to slice picture framing grade acrylic is with a table saw. Leave the mask on and run it with the saw. It cuts fine using a standard table saw blade. Oh, then one very last thing. Acrylic is a bit more expensive than glass. Since acrylic can be a petroleum based product, it really is vulnerable to oil price spikes. As with gas, if the expense of a barrel of oil rises the same is true the cost of acrylic, but when the tariff of a barrel falls, the purchase price doesn't fall commensurately, so that you will forever pay more for acrylic. When you are looking at price and ease of cutting, glass beats acrylic. But in terms of durability, cleanliness and light weight acrylic wins whenever. There are benefits and drawbacks to glass and acrylic. Depending on the situation it's possible to be preferred over the other.Like it? Share it! More by this author |